Process op treating peat



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFIC.

NELSON DE LONG, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

PROCESS OF TREATING PEAT.

No Drawing.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, NELSON DE Lone, a citizen of the United States of America, and a resident of Chicago, county of Cook, and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Processes of Treating Peat, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to the treatment of peat so as to prepare it as a fuel or to put it in a condition for other commercial purposes. The object of the invention is to cause bog peat to give up its water content in a more expeditious and thorough manner than has heretofore been possible.

Peat as it comes from the bogs normally contains eighty to ninety per cent. of water. This water is largely contained in cells of the plants which give rise to peat bogs. By compression the water content may be reduced to about seventy per cent, but this is not enough to make the material useful. Ordinarily air drying is a slow process and only partially accomplishes the result. Drying by heat is expensive. Furthermore, heat dried peat is friable.

Most peat is of an acid character. I have discovered that by adding a small amount of alkali to the peat as it comes from the bog, the material so treated will give up its water much more freely and will dry out into the form of a hard body much resembling hard rubber in appearance and texture. The alkali used may be sodium carbonate, potassium carbonate, borax, or like material. Of these I will considersodium carbonate (commonly known as washing soda) as being typical of the class of alkalis which may be used for this purpose. Diiferent peats differ somewhat in composition and require different amounts of alkali for successful treatment, but I have found that the addition of about one-half of one per cent. by weight of sodium carbonate is satisfactory for ordinary grades of peat. This soda may be added in a powdered form or may be gissolved in water and added in a liquid orm.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Aug. 12, 1919.

Application filed September 23, 1918. Serial No. 255,298.

In carrying out my process I put the peat through a mixing machine of any kind or description and add the alkali to the mass while being mixed. The material is then preferably made up into blocks and left to dry in the air. A convenient way of making this material into blocks is to put it through a pug mill of the kind used in making ordinary mud brick. If the peat with added alkali is treated as clay is treated in ordinary brick making and if made into two-inch cubes, it will dry out in from eight to twelve days into hard blocks only a little over one inch on each side. These blocks may then be used as ordinary coal or lignite is used.

The mixed peat and alkali may be left to dry in mass, but is requires longer to accomplish the drying process. With the alkali added, peat dries in air into a hard and solid body, and not into a friable body peat at ordinary temperatures and pressures which consists in mixing with the peat a small quantity of alkali of a kind which will attack the water-holding cells of the peat Without combining with the water thereof, and in exposing the mixture to the outside air.

2. The process of removing water from peat at ordinary temperatures and pressures which consists in mixing with the peat a small quantity of alkali which will attack the water-holding cells of the peat but will not combine with the water thereof, in forming the mixture into blocks, and in drying such blocks by exposing them to the air.

8. The process of removing water from peat at ordinary temperatures and pressures which consists in mixing with the peat about one-half of one per cent. by weight of sodium carbonate, and in exposing the mixture to the action of the outside air.

NELSON DE LONG.

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